A
summer program sponsored and hosted by
Brandeis University for
high
school students.
The most prestigious part of the program is the Science Research Internship
part of BSO, in which 15-20 students from around the country are selected
to work with different Brandeis professors in their research endeavors.
The fields of research include psychology, political science, biology,
chemistry, computer science, and just about everything else under the
sun. It's an eight week program, culminating in writing a research
paper based on the summer's work and presenting it in front of the administrators
of the program, various professors, and the other interns. Many of
the SRIs have gone on to become Semifinalists and Finalists in the Westinghouse
Science Talent Search (recently changed to Intel), to get their work published,
and achieve various other accolades.
(I was an SRI in 1997, working in Dr. Michael Kahana's memory/computer
science laboratory. My Westinghouse Semifinalist paper based on the
summer's work was entitled Associative Symmetry: An Examination of the
Representation of Associations in Human Memory, in case you're interested.)
There are three or four other programs in the BSO besides the Science
Research Internship, all of which last for a shorter period of time (four
weeks) and are much less intensive. They include doing some research
in groups, taking classes, and various other survey activities designed
to give the participants a "taste" of college or research.
As terrific as the research aspect of the summer was, the administration
of the program was downright awful. Members of the opposite sex were
not allowed to be in each other's dorm rooms unless the door was open,
and certainly not after the strict 11 PM curfew. I heard that in
the year preceding mine, the male and female dorms were directly across
from each other. So, they'd stand in front of their windows (boys
and girls, I might add) completely naked, in silent protest of the
rules.
There were also incredibly stupid group activities almost every night--manditory
activities. Many of these were lectures in various academic fields,
but these were so basic and mundane to the point of condescension that
we really were offended to be required to go to them. My mentor worked
me hard, and I'd skip some of the activities not because I didn't want
to go, but because I was sometimes still in the lab working until 11 or
12 o'clock at night. I'd then get in trouble for skipping them, due
to the fact that "the social activities are an integral part of the Brandeis
Summer Odyssey experience." Oh. Excuse me. I had been
under the impression that I was there to do award-winning research, not
listen to an idiot biologist explain mitosis and meiosis. Then
comes the rationale that "You should be able to get your work done during
the day like the other 150 students," conveniently ignoring the fact that
the other 150 non-SRI students' work is several orders of magnitude
less difficult than mine, that there are 10 students that skipped the lecture
sitting in front of you, and that every one of them is an SRI.
They claimed they wanted us to produce and do good research ("to uphold
the prestigious standards of the program"), and then they promptly put
their feet in their mouths by forcing us to take time away from our research
in about ten different ways (all equally stupid).
But I did get a hell of a research project done out of it and
a ton of experience, and I'd do all again in an instant.